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Wed 14 Jun 2017 6:49PM

Trieste 2017 - Priorities for the Rule of Law and the Fight against Corruption

JM Jovana Marovic Public Seen by 466

Dear participants,

As the consultation process lasts until the end of the month, I suggests to comment on the existing priorities and propose new ones by June 20. After that, we will jointly define the final priorities for the summit and vote through this platform.

In order to define new, here are all the priorities that have been defined so far:

  1. The EU should intensify communication with CSOs within the new reporting cycle and prior to preparation of the country reports and improve two-way communication. Simulation of reforms on the ground should be highlighted in the EU’s country reports. In this way, CSOs can help shape the content of the country reports, improve the benchmarking system, enhance CSOs participation in the monitoring and evaluation of the rule law and fight against corruption.

  2. Governments should gather and publicize information using accurate, reliable and accessible data. This will lead towards greater citizens’ participation and transparency of the European integration process.

  3. An alternative regional benchmarking system on specific issues should be developed and conducted by the civil society organizations in the Western Balkans including tracking of the specific corruption cases at the regional level. Upon this template, countries should report to the next summit.

  4. Regional cooperation on data exchange in specific segments of anticorruption such as assets disclosure and conflict of interest should be strengthened. CSOs encourage governments to adopt the regional instrument on data exchange which will be prepared by the Regional Anticorruption Initiative (RAI) with the support of the ANAC and civil society.

JM

Jovana Marovic Thu 15 Jun 2017 5:23PM

Thanks Bojan for the interventions. I'm moving your suggestions here.

I have replaced "process" with "European integration process" in the text. I don't think there should be any disagreement over this with other colleagues, but if there are any, please write it in the comments.

Perhaps we can also define a list of priority areas instead of "issues"? Of course, if the other participants agree and if they are ready to suggest and define areas all together. In any case, all the recommendations how to define and change this section are welcome.

Bojan's suggestions:
2. Governments should gather and publicize information using accurate, reliable and accessible data. This will lead towards greater citizens’ participation and transparency of the process. Maybe clarify which process we have in mind?

  1. An alternative regional benchmarking system on specific issues (Again, maybe to clarify what kind of specific issues? Maybe something like **critical rule of law issues* or rule of law priority areas?*)
M

majaraicevicwrc Tue 10 Apr 2018 1:59PM

Dear colleagues, I'm jumping in from the group discussion related to gender issues, which I recently joined. Gender equality is a crosscutting issue and it should be also addressed within the Rule of Law discussion, as gender inequalities are the integral part of the fundamentals first agenda. The Rule of law reforms must address discrimination of women, since evidence-based reports indicate that legal frameworks fail to adequately protect and promote women’s rights to political participation representation, employment, land rights, family life etc. The rule of law plays a critical part in the recognition and implementation of women’s rights and vice versa - a justice system that fails to ensure access to justice for half the population is a failed system.